1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for recording/reproducing information on or from a recording medium.
2. Related Art
Information recording and reproducing devices include a magnetic disk apparatus, an optical disk apparatus, an opto-magnetic disk apparatus, an optical card apparatus, an ID card apparatus, and so on.
FIGS. 1(A) and 1(B) schematically illustrate the configuration of information recording tracks of an optical disk, and FIG. 1(C) shows the format of.
The optical disk 1 shown in FIG. 1(A) has concentric tracks, while the optical disk 1 shown in FIG. 1(B) has spiral tracks. Both optical disks 1 have a relay track region which is used as a substitute track when recording on some recording area is not possible.
Each track is constructed of, as shown in FIG. 1(C), an ID area for storing in most cases a track number, and a DATA area for storing data. An optical head can be accessed to a desired track after reading the ID area.
However, in case information must be recorded on a relay track, it takes additional time for the system to perform such recording, thus reducing the recording speed of the entire system.